


Ice Mirror

by saunatonttu



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Canon Death, Gen, Grieving, Mentions of canon typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 09:57:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14871581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu
Summary: "She doesn't even cry for her own sister."Fjorm & Gunnthrá & the grief that chokes.





	Ice Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on characterization: My Fjorm does not entirely align with the canon Fjorm (mostly because I keep adding unconfirmed things as I please), but I hope this is an alright read in any case.

“She doesn’t even cry for her own sister.” The whispers are there – she hears them, regardless of whether anyone speaks the words out loud or not. They are not particularly malevolent murmurs – she has heard worse things said about herself by the mouths of Surtr’s men. Unlike those, however, this one stings and cuts deep, even if the hurt doesn’t bleed out to her face.

She hurries her steps and walks away from the judging gazes, a vague warmth rising to her face. From which emotion the heat comes from, she does not know.

~*~

 _Ice Princess_ , they call her. It would have been a compliment, were it not for the fact that now they are judging her heart instead of her strength. And the conclusion is not flattering: her heart, they judge, is a dark and uncaring one.

(There are some that do not think so: lady Lachesis, for one. But she is as stubborn as Fjorm, so it is not unexpected that she should stick to her own way of thinking and judging people.)

She should not mind them.

Perhaps it is the cold that has left her reeling and vulnerable.

  ~*~

They used to sleep together when the winters grew harsh and freezing. Gunnthrá, her, and Ylgr. Fjorm suspects Ylgr would not remember those nights they huddled together: she had been but a toddler back then. Perhaps it is a blessing: Ylgr is like Gunnthrá, after all, with her soft heart and kind eyes.

Fjorm is… not.

She can remember this without tears and despair. Those days of clinging to Gunnthrá’s sleeves are long gone – and Fjorm’s emotions have gone stale and still like the coldest winter day. It is as mother said: emotions burn hot, but there is no room for that fire in their life and kingdom.

Even her hatred of Surtr is a cold rage: a blizzard rather than a fire.

This hatred is all the she had for a time. It kept her going when she was all alone – until the royal siblings of Asks and their summoner found her on that fateful day. Since then… nothing has changed, not truly. Her heart is a wrathful one, her gentler emotions buried deep beneath the icy exterior.

And these memories of warmth and being held by Gunnthrá’s gentle arms do not reach deep enough. Nothing does.

~*~

Nifl’s nights are even colder, and Fjorm warns her companions that they should take care. Frostbites are difficult to deal with during their march. While the others are buried in their sleeping bags inside their tents, Fjorm stands outside and keeps watch alone, having refused Alfonse’s offer to help.

She needs time to think, and these are the only moments she can. The rest of her days she spends training, marching on with the army, or listening quietly to Sharena’s stories of Askr and Alfonse and their father.

(Fjorm barely remembers hers.)

She thinks of Hríd, her older brother gone missing. He’s like her in the way that he trained just as rigorously as her and his feelings on anything are difficult to grasp. He slips away from emotional confrontation as easily as Gunnthrá falls asleep.

Fjorm does not run away, but like her Ice Mirror, she absorbs and deflects.

She wonders if Hríd would run away once they find him and he hears about their sister’s demise. He’s a prince of ice, but his emotions burn hotter than Surtr’s flames.

While hers jut turn to ashes if they ever flare up.

Maybe that’s all she is at this point: a burnt field of ashes with puddles of melted ice here and there.

The icy wind picks up and Fjorm curls under the blanket Sharena has left behind for her. She does not think about the childhood nights spent cuddling her sisters, tucked away in Gunnthrá’s safe arms and embrace.

Hríd is more like her than Ylgr or Gunnthrá.

She wishes he could be there to tell her everything’s going to be fine. But it’s a childish wish, and it dies just like the rest of her useless daydreams.

(Like Gunnthrá.)

~*~

As the eldest, Gunnthrá had always been distant but comforting presence at the edges of Fjorm’s life, especially after Fjorm had taken up lance training. (Her brother had picked the sword – of course she would choose lances.) Fjorm had trained and trained and trained – with her mother’s approval and besting Hríd ruling her thoughts.

Gunnthrá, in the meantime, was absorbed in her tomes and magic studies. Whenever Fjorm saw her, her braided hair was tousled and eyes weary from napping.

She always had a smile for Fjorm. For all of them, really. But Fjorm no longer remembers her smile; it has been too long without seeing it.

What she remembers is the smell of Gunnthrá’s flesh, similar to the burnt bodies of her people when Surtrs first conquered Nifl. It is a smell she can never escape: it’s in her nose, in her lungs, in her dreams.

And she is numb to it.

Used to it.

~*~

She manages to smile.

It must mean she’s not grieving, people take it. It must mean she truly does not care.

They do not know apathy is her closest confidant in the absence of her family. They do not know of the necrosis of her heart. It is fine like that – it would perhaps be worse if someone did understand the numbness that shields her from memories and feelings.

She doesn’t quite manage to laugh, but she has never been the type of laugh much as her life has been full of stubborn hit-or-miss training and trying to make mother proud while competing with Hríd. And now she must look after Ylgr as well, her so far only surviving sibling.

Tears have no place here. She couldn’t shed them even if he wanted to.

She must… defeat Surtr.

And maybe then… maybe then the grief will come.

~*~

The cold chill in her veins keeps her up when she’s trying to sleep, Sharena’s breaths beside her a comforting but ultimately useless lullaby. Ylgr’s smaller frame curls beside Fjorm, seeking what little body warmth her sick sister has.

Fjorm wonders what Sharena thinks of her – if the Askrian princess thinks she’s as cold as the Nifl air they breathe. The thought curls in her mind, trying to stab at her insecurities until it fades away just like the rest of Fjorm’s thoughts.

She wonders if she’s going to be able to finally cry when she sees her brother again. His anger and sadness might drag the feelings deep inside Fjorm’s frosty heart out – Hríd has a way of getting to her that their sisters don’t. Didn’t.

(She’s just a little girl too focused on her games of revenge, isn’t she? She’s nothing like those empathetic princesses from stories that can cry and empathize to the point where others’ pain becomes their own. Compared to them, Fjorm can’t even weep for her big sister.)

It’s in the small hours of the night that Fjorm’s heart aches: the holes in it widening until they’re open and painful. Everything comes crashing down: her anxieties, her memories, to the point where anxiety prods at her chest from the inside with no other way out.

Feelings used to come more easily, more readily, and she worked hard to get them under control. But now, now she questions herself. They expect her to grieve, to weep; she expects herself to be strong and invulnerable. Her own identity in the shadows of Gunnthrá’s gentleness and Hríd’s fierceness.

She wants to be the shield for her country -  but is she hiding behind one herself? One that keeps her away from facing reality and her emotions.

The doubt shakes her when no one watches.

The night drags on like that, with anxiety and guilt prickling at her chest, until it all fades away again.

 

 

Perhaps she truly is as horrible as they say.

( _Sister, what would you think if you saw me now?)_

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to say... if you've lost someone important to you and you can't grieve "properly" or in the way peopöe expect you to, don't worry. You are grieving, even if not with a thousand tears and a heavy heart. You are not a bad person for having a tough time handling and grasping the situation. Sometimes emotions don't come out in the way you expect them to, and that's all right.


End file.
